Friday, August 21, 2009

The night before last I woke around 3am with a strange sort of feeling that I had been listening to myself breathing for the last half hour as I slept.

Usually when I wake at that time its a fairly quick process but this time I felt like I had slowly slid out of the depths of sleep and lingered for some time just listening to the rhythm as I inhaled and exhaled. I have no idea where the time frame of half an hour had come from but it was very clear in my mind when I woke.

After a moment, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and started to analyse the feeling which felt more like a memory than a dream. In my mind it started to become less and less likely that I could have actually been listening to myself breathe while I was asleep and soon as much doubt existed as there had previously been belief.

I sometimes think my logical mind is what prevents me from delving as far into the land of esoteria as would be otherwise possible.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I dreamt that I was shaving my forearms. I was using a razor but was fascinated to note that it was cutting like clippers into a fine but even coat. The hairs on my forearms are actually quite fine and light in colour, as they were in the dream but there were more of them there. The amazing w.w. looked this up in a Polish dream book of hers and says that dreams of hairy arms relate to job offers but she added that me shaving the hair in the dream begs the question of whether I would take the offer or not. I didn't draw a parallel until she gave me her interpretation but the day after I had this dream I was offered some additional work at my temp job but I turned it down. Spot on dream interpretation, me thinks.

The next night I dreamt I was at a hotel and a friend of mine from high school was there. We've always been in touch since we left school but in the dream she was trying to play practical jokes on me. At one point I was in the bathroom of my hotel room and a stream of sun screen squirted down on me from a roof vent out of what looked like a sauce bottle nozzle. I don't know how I found out but it was done by an older man, perhaps in his late 40's but my friend had put him up to it. The next thing I knew I was on the roof top of the hotel and was angry because I had been in the bathroom and felt that the joke had crossed the line as I could have been undressed or anything. My friend was laughing but I was somehow calmly pissed. I grabbed the guy and threw him over the edge of the building. As I looked over I saw him fall and crash into a glass ledge.

My friend freaked out, which is understandable, and screamed at me, "Oh, my God, what have you done?". I'm usually the sort of person who would always try to talk about things but I remember just walking off in the dream and feeling like I didn't really need to answer. I was smiling to myself as I left and I said something that might have been, "You didn't expect that, did you?" or something really callous like that.

My dream then turned to a need to dispose of the body of this guy I'd thrown off the building. As I was thinking this the image of him crashing into the glass flashed past and I realised that other people would have seen what had happened and would be attending to the body but I still had to do something about it anyway.

I talked to The Starchild and then got a flash of an image of a hole he had dug, but it was in the old dirt driveway at my Mum's house, which is the house that I grew up in, but the driveway in the dream was more like as it was in around 1980 to 1985, when I was between the ages of five and ten. The Starchild didn't really talk much but he listened to what had happened and then got to work, which is much like him, and just muttered something about it being a good job that he had dug that hole so now we could bury the body in it. I felt good and hopeful and went to the linen closest in my current house to get something to wrap the body in before we buried it. I took ages trying to find something appropriate, which for some reason I thought needed to be brown and green - not common colours for any of the things I own, and by the time I decided on something, The Starchild was slapping the dirt from his hands and clothes and had finished the job, which is, again, much like him.

I'm a bit disconcerted about this dream, as you can imagine, as I can't consolidate any of my thoughts, feelings or actions in it with my usual self. I've had a really strange energy with me for a few weeks now and I kind of feel like it is related. I've also had some really great advice today from w.w. about good ways to release the energy, which she noticed on Monday night, but that advice also included a comment that resonated with me quite strongly and that was sometimes these things have some work to do with us. I have had a bit of a reluctance to release it just yet and there are a number of situations that have shown me that I don't feel really scared by it at all, but I don't trust it, and I feel that it is trying to influence some of my conscious decisions. There doesn't seem to be an immediate need to take action on this as yet but it does feel like I'm going to go on a bit of a trip each night when I go to bed, not that that is so unusual, but I think there are some things that I need to work with at the moment. Once I am through with that I will go a tree-hugging, which I will probably blog about some more then.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The task was to create a spell using Aloe Vera - a common plant but not one with an abundance of references in terms of spell work.

As with many things in Wicca, I was inspired by my natural environment and the things happening around me. I had been recently gifted with an Aloe Vera cutting but I fear I wasn't doing very well with my charge and needed to give it a bit of a healing boost. As Aloe Vera is a plant with amazing healing qualities, I decided to write a spell to create a healing poppet to give health to a plant...

This spell can be used to help when a plant is starting to wane, is looking slightly unhealthy or when replanting to help the plant to stabilise and thrive. You will need a healthy Aloe Vera plant from which to take a small cutting and some natural / bio-degradable material, which can be anything from a swatch of cotton to a paper towel, from which to make a small poppet.

Sit before the healthy Aloe Vera plant and ground and centre.

Focus on your intention to bring health to the plant you will be working the spell on. Picture the plant as it is now and ask the healthy Aloe Vera plant for help with your intentions by saying:

By the flower, bush and treeWith health and life to sharePass your abundance here through meAs my intentions I declare

Take a small cutting from the healthy Aloe Vera plant using your boline.

Fashion a small poppet using the natural / bio-degradable material placing the cutting of Aloe Vera inside the chest area as you make it. It doesn’t really matter how you make the poppet or what it looks like but it will need to be of an appropriate size to place in the pot or on the ground very close to the plant you will be working with. As you make the poppet, chant the following:

She carries here within her heart
This gift of health she will impart

Under the new moon or at dawn during the new moon phase, kneel before the plant that you will
be giving the healing poppet to and say:

By the flower, bush and treeThis gift I bring to youHer healing love will shine on theeAnd your health she will renew

Place the poppet as close to the base of the plant as possible and say:

Blessed be

The poppet should be left in the plant until it breaks down naturally and can be turned into the soil in due course.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

In essence, Shamanism is the spiritual practices followed by Shamans, who are the practitioners of Shamanism; however, there are many views on how this is specifically practised, the intent applied and the founding belief system.

The basis of Shamanism is animism, which is the belief that all matter has a spirit or life force. Shamans dedicate their existence to being at one with all of nature by connecting with these life forces. This connection is typically made by the Shaman in a trance, or waking-dream like state, also sometimes referred to as astral projection or an out-of-body experience (OOBE). It is believed that while he or she is in this state, the Shaman is able to travel between the physical world and the spiritual world.

Various means are applied by Shamans in order to enter into trance. Meditation using drumming and chanting are common, as are the use of entheogens and hallucinogenics.

The purpose for entering into trance is for the Shaman to travel between worlds, dimensions, parallel universes or planes of existence in order to affect our physical world. This, of course, allows for the potential of both negative and positive impacts; however, the most common application is for the purpose of healing. Shamans have also been credited with powers of divination and the ability to work with the elements, including fire, air, water, earth and the weather in various forms.

Shamanism is not an actual religion and traditionally, only those chosen into Shamanism become shamans, though the means to be chosen can be self-proclaimed. A Shaman may be male or female, although the latter is relatively uncommon. The calling to Shamanism is often via a near death experience (NDE), particularly being struck by lightning, falling from a great height or suffering a life-threatening illness. Another means to be called is via lucid dreaming, especially if the dream involves one’s own death or ones internal organs being consumed or removed and then replaced.